Interview by Allie Gee.
There are sirens shrieking on the street behind us when I finally catch up with The Young Electric (formed in 2011), the Provo based rock band that has just opened up a show for big time screamers Motionless in White. Despite their insistence that they have “royally screwed up” all of their interviews in the past, the four musicians (Riley Hamnett [vocals], Mat Deason [guitar], Drew Hamnett [bass], and Natty Coleman [drums]), are fun and easy to talk to. Standing right outside Club Sound in Salt Lake City, The Young Electric give some insight to some of the stories behind their first full length album Machines, which was released in October of 2012, and their current EP Crows, which came out just this year. They also open up about their history, their writing techniques and past tours, amongst many other topics. With the band currently performing inside screaming audibly and whatever nonsense is going on with the police down the street providing plenty of background noise, the band yell their answers into my phone and reveal all you need to know about themselves. And clams.
How did you guys get started with this band?
Riley Hamnett: This is an epic of tale of wonder and lust.
Drew Hamnett: So Riley and I are brothers, we played in bands forever, and we played with Mat in another band, and then we met Nate.
RH: Yeah, this is actually Nate’s first show with us and I didn’t say anything [on stage] and I should’ve said something…yeah first show.
How was that?
Natty Coleman: It was really fun.
RH: He did good.
Have you always known you wanted to play music?
RH: (jokingly) I used to know that I wanted to play music and now I know I don’t want to play music. So it was actually the opposite of most people. I always knew I wanted to play music and, until you actually do it you don’t know how much you’ll hate it.
Mat Deason: It’s really fun, they’re just really sad people. I’m a lot happier, and so is Nate, and it’s a good time and I think we’ve all known since we were little kids [that this is what we wanted to do.]
RH: Opposites attract they say.
DH: I didn’t wanna play music my brother made me.
RH: I wanted to be in a band because…I don’t know why I wanted to be in a band.
DH: I remember skating a quarter pipe listening to Pennywise with some like, neighborhood kids, and one of the kids played bass, and the other kid played the guitar and so I played the piano, so of course I’m on synths cause that makes sense, you know, with a band like Pennywise. We got kicked out of our neighborhood band when we first started because we took it too seriously. We wanted to practice and we wanted to write our own songs and so we got kicked out of that. And they ended up playing a like, battle of the bands that we did, and it was really awkward, but now we just got back in touch with them we wanna go paint balling with them.
RH: We just wanted to be in a band cause we like music!
But there wasn’t like a dawning moment…
RH: What does Lady Gaga say? Born this way? That’s pretty much it.
MD: I think it was after watching School of Rock.
Who are some of your guy’s musical inspirations? Do you incorporate anything from anyone else you listen to?
DH: Okay so there’s this saying, and I don’t know the author of this saying is: The most creative people conceal their sources the best, so I’ll just say that. We’ll conceal our sources.
RH: -cutting in- But I like The Cure a lot.
Is there anything special you do when you’re writing music?
MD: Turn the lights off, light candles.
RH: Yeah, actually, we write different than a lot of bands. A lot of bands, because of technology, will write their parts on a computer, or they’ll have like one guy be the songwriter we write it like…
MD: We Frankenstein it.
RH: To us, it’s more organic than that. We don’t use like Pro Tools…
DH: Mat will come up with ideas, not even ideas for entire songs, I’ll write entire songs and Riley will have entire lyrics, more like poems written out, and then we Frankenstein them together. That part’s great, we’re really about cutting the fat, so we’re like “Oh this part’s rad and that’s a cool part.”
RH: And mainly how our songs start is like, either Drew or Mat will have a riff that’s just a single little thing and then we’ll just build off of it at practice and we’ll just jam it out.
MD: In “Bleed It Dry,” that opening riff started with me just trying to be funny and then Drew said that was cool, and then “Bleed It Dry” started.
RH: I think that’s the same answer for “Sweet Child O’ Mine” that Guns n’ Roses gave.
So your full length is titled Machines. That’s just kind of a broad term, like “machines” can apply to anything. Is there something specific that “machines” refers too?
RH: Machines refers to a lot. It’s about like, relationships, and the mechanics of going through a relationship, and kind of like how you just kind of turn into machines and become just mechanical, and it’s kind of sad because then the organic-ness is lost. Well the first track is kind of like an intro to the record, it’s called “Patterns and Process”, and it’s like slipping into what you’re “supposed” to do. You’re slipping into a routine. You used to love somebody, you used to feel something, and now you just say you do because that’s what you’re supposed to do.
DH: Every time I read something about what a band said about an album, I try to shy away from that because I think albums in particular, [are] a piece of art and you can interpret it however you want. That sounds really negative, but I think some of the most melodic, pretty parts of that record are the most sad things that are written, about the things that are most s**tty, like about a failing relationship.
RH: It’s hard to sing some of the songs when you start thinking about what you’re singing.
DH: I think Riley in particular deals with a lot of stuff with catharsis. It’s really cathartic to like, hammer out something that’s been bugging him internally, and we can tell when Riley comes into practice and he’s in a crappy mood–
NC: Which is ALWAYS!
DH: –we know we’re gonna write something, that he’s gonna have something to say because something’s been like, eating him up and he’s been internalizing it, and it’s been going through his mind, and now he can get it out on paper. And to go back and listen to Machines and to know what was going on in Riley’s life is kind of uncomfortable. So to sing songs from Machines still makes me a little uncomfortable because I know what was going on.
RH: Nothing like airing dirty laundry, right?
Same with Crows, where did Crows come from?
RH: What do crows eat? Dead things. So if you continue what Machines was about, being in the process of a relationship, it’s the end of that relationship.
DH: I almost felt like I was watching the prequel to something happening, because as we were writing and recording Crows, I knew everything it was about before the train wreck happened, so it was kinda like knowing what was going to happen because you listened to it. What we’re worried about, is we’re worried that Riley’s going to get happy at one stage and we’re gonna stop writing music that sounds good. And that’s where Crows came from!
RH: Ask Nate a question, actually I want to know this answer. Because I know it was your dream since you were a young lad to play with us, and now that the dream has come true, is it everything you thought it would be?
NC: Well I didn’t imagine so much…body paint.
From the Motionless in White fans?
NC: Yeah. Other than that, it was exactly what I thought it would be.
These kind of go together, they might be different answers, they might be the same: favorite band you’ve played with, and favorite show you’ve played?
RH: For me, we toured with Hawthorne Heights. We opened for them on the east coast and into the south, and we did that for about two months, and they’re still some of our best friends, and for me, that was one of my favorites.
DH: So one of the last shows of that tour we found a custom t-shirt printing shop and we went and we found a picture of Danny Glover, and underneath it we put “Ohio is for Glovers.” And we all wore it and fans were coming up to their merch booth like, “That’s an awesome shirt! Can I get one?” And I think they were kinda bent because it was like, “You’re making fun of us but it’s cool, it would’ve sold.” So, Ohio is for Glovers.
MD: It was on that tour, more specifically though, Little Rock, Arkansas, we played at Clarita’s (Juanita’s? Clarita’s? Ita’s?) Ita’s. But nonetheless, they had great empanadas…so it’s like a Mexican restaurant on the bottom, and a bar. I think my favorite part of that show, was one, we played really well, but the best part was when Drew almost killed somebody. So there’s a shorter person standing at the end of the stage–
DH: I thought they were in a wheelchair?
MD: –the poor girl’s in a wheelchair in the front of the stage, Drew jumps off and has to like, spread eagle his legs, just missing her head. And that funny experience and [the] food, so it was like the best night of that tour.
RH: Every time we play a good show, I like to look back on things, but I’m always kind of in the moment, because when I think about the future I get depressed, and when I think about the past I’m like “Aw, why can’t we live that again?” But when I’m in the moment and we’ve just played a good show like tonight, I’m like, “Oh this is why I do this, this is actually fun.”
DH: The Dalai Lama once said, “If you’re depressed you’re living in the past, if you’re anxious you’re living in the future.” You gotta live for now!
Okay final question: if you could be any animal what animal would you be?
RH: Alright my answer has a little bit–
DH: CLAM.
RH: –…I don’t even wanna say anything. We all wanna be clams.
NC: And beavers.
DH: Can you title this interview “Beavers and Clams: a Rough History of The Young Electric?”
You can keep up with the current endeavors of The Young Electric by following them on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Their Debut LP, Machines, and their new EP, Crows, are currently available on iTunes and Spotify. You can also check them out on their website here. Here is their current single, “Bleed It Dry.”
